Billy Wilder

I recently had a friend tell me that they liked the movie “Sunset Boulevard”. It was a huge coincidence since I just watched that brilliant movie the night before. I had to comment on why Billy Wilder, one of my idols, has influenced me and so many other writers. He was so amazing.

Billy Wilder, whom I consider a poet of words and a master of the story, remains as influential to writing screenplays than ever before. In the world of genre writing where we are today, Mr. Wilder was able to cross genre boundaries with such amazing ability and mastery. If you take three of Mr. Wilder’s movies he’s penned, “Sunset Boulevard”, “The Apartment”, and “Double Indemnity”, you can see a writer who can reach many audiences. He is a true story teller.

In watching the first 20 minutes of “The Apartment” staring Jack Lemon and Shirley McClain, Mr. Wilder was able to get you, the audience to fully understand, within a simple scene, Jack Lemon’s character, C.C Baxter. You see him come home to his apartment after work, go into the kitchen, make a TV dinner and, eventually, see him land in front of his TV where he barely misses his favorite shows (end of show/or commercial). It is not a huge fact finding scene full of drama or dialogue, but it gets the audience into the characters world, immediately.

In a more dramatic sequence of events, Mr. Wilder is able to do the same thing with Shirley McClain’s character, Fran, a perky elevator attendant. She tries to commit suicide (a pretty racy choice for a 1960 comedy) late in the first act. Although these two things are the opposite in tragedy, there is symmetry between the two main characters. In a way they are both in need, and missing something, in their life. Mr. Wilder makes you understand just what these characters are going through, what they are going to get into, together, and he does this with many laughs throughout. It’s just brilliant.

*** If you like the TV show “Mad Men“, watch this movie.***

“Double Indemnity”

This one of the genre, Film Noir, is at the top of that movie category. Unfortunately for many actors who passed on this role, Fred MacMurry (one of the most underrated actors in the history of film who was also brilliant in “The Apartment”) was amazing playing Walter Neff. What was more brilliant was how Mr. Wilder, in this genre of big roles and over the top performances, made Walter Neff, who does such terrible acts, into a character the audience will root for. He was able to make the audience care about him, trusting that he will get away with what he does. You know, in the first scene, where the main character will end up and you want to take the journey with him. All of the usual plot twists in Film Noir are there, but you leave more than satisfied. “Double Indemnity” doesn’t get the credits it deserves.

“Sunset Boulevard”

A broke screenwriter, not able to get work, finds himself in the driveway of a fifty year old actress. She takes him in and gives him things he is not able to refuse. The bad thing, for him, is that he ends up loving this crazy actress. He is given many ways to get out, but he always ends up in her old mansion full of wealth and hardship. He fights between the world he found himself in and the world where he can’t catch a break. He gives up on a life he wanted (as a writer) with a young woman, who is the antithesis of the old suicidal and worn out actress he lives with. He chooses the old woman where he ends up paying for his choice.

If you place “Some Like It Hot” with these three screenplays that reach three (maybe four) distinct audiences across three decades, it is easy to see how much of an influence Mr. Billy Wilder has had on the writing community. In the past thirty or so years, no one has been able to achieve the mastery Mr. Wilder was able to do.

Thank you Billy Wilder and thank you, my friend for making me remember just how brilliant this man was.